Wednesday, 30 November 2011

Adding to the European delay, it looks like there are more problems for the release of the Metal Gear Solid HD collection over here. Originally, Zavvi had a fantastic sounding deal, with a collectors edition that would feature MGS 2, 3, Peace walker and a download code for the original MGS along with some art cards and a steel book case.

However, today Zavvi sent out an email to all pre orders and has pulled the listing for the fore mentioned deal. Now the collection will no longer have the download code for MGS 1 but will feature a free t-shirt and 250-page art book. Not only that, but to make up for the changes, Zavvi has decided that all current pre orders will receive a free copy of MGS4 to help their woes.

These changes sound understandable, it seems that the "Ultimate" bundle has been made for the Xbox as well so these changes seem appropriate to turn it multi platform. Zavvi should also be commended for adding the little extra of MGS4 as well, though you could argue that anyone who has pre ordered already has MGS 4, but it's wrong to complain about a free offering.

Tuesday, 29 November 2011

About a month ago, Nintendo of Japan detailed a new update to the 3DS firmware that sounded rather substantial. with a European release for this update originally set for November 30th.

The update will feature, among other small things, 3D video recording and playback, new puzzles for puzzle swap along with a sequel to street pass quest. Today, as Eurogamer reports, the update has been hit with a postponement.

The new date is set for December the 8th, with Nintendo stating that they need "more time to prepare". Possibly needing to prepare servers for the huge influx of people downloading the update.

While this delay is kind of disappointing, the features that are in it are quite interesting. it'll be nice to have an extension of the street pass games as I've completed them both many times over and it's got a little boring. The 3D video playback is what interests me most though, this opens up the potential for downloading movies and storing them on the SD card to watch in 3D which I think will be quite useful.

Thursday, 24 November 2011

Having launched in the US in October this year, Catherine has been a bit of a bit hit for Atlus. Being their fastest selling game to date with over 500,000 copies sold. Though not the case critically with it receiving middling to low reviews across the board as well as from me, I didn't think brilliantly of it.

Even with all the sales, Catherine has had a very hard time securing a release date in Europe, with only "Early 2012" being stated. Well we now have something more of a release window for the game! As Eurogamer reports, the game will be released in Europe in Feburary 2012, and will feature a *gasp* reversible cover to those that purchase it first!

If you ask me, I think it's a little too late for Catherine to make any substantial sales anywhere in Europe. The game sold well in America, but I imagine most people who want to buy it in Europe, managed to import it when it came out in America. Though this very reason is probably what took so long as I can imagine publishers not exactly being hasty to pick up an import favorite. Regardless, it looks like we're going to see it here eventually.

Wednesday, 23 November 2011

It's that time of the year again where wallets all across the world cry in anguish. Today marked the beginning of another steam sale, this one for autumn.

The sale will be running until the 27th and will have a series of games on sale rotating every day. Today we've got some great deals with Test Drive Unlimited 2 at £3.74 or Portal 2 for £6.79. There are also a string of deals going on throughout the period of the sale with every major publisher, aside from Activision, cutting the prices of their games for the sale as well.

This looks to be another standard sale from steam, in which prices may get ridiculous and many people, myself included, will end up buying more than they can afford, both financially and in terms of free time.

The sale lasts until the 27th, I bet we're going to see a whole load of crazy deals over the next few days.

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

The humble indie bundle has become a bit of a standard thing right now. The concept is rather simple, every now and then, a bunch of independent developers will get together and bundle their games into one package. This package is then put up on www.humblebundle.com where people can pay whatever they want for the games (so long as it's over $0.01).

Customers can even choose where their money goes, with some money being able to go to Child's Play, a charity dedicated to getting games to sick children in hospitals. This is completely customisable via sliders, you could have it all go to charity or all to the developers and anywhere in between.

Today they announced the humble Introversion a bundle made up of all the games from British indie dev Introversion. For those that don't know, introversion are best known for Darwinia, a tactical game with a unique art style, as well as Uplink, and Defcon, two fantastic games that have a simple premise but are great fun to play.

not only that, but anyone who makes a purchase above the average price of around $3.50 (the price fluctuates of course) you get Aquaria and Crayon Physics as well, so that's 6 games for only like £2.50 a fantastic deal.

I'm definatley going to be dipping into this, though i've already got all the introversion games, the price is right for the extra games and i they are all steam games too.

Friday, 18 November 2011

Released today, Saints Row: The Third has been received rather well by critics. Managing to get an 82 on metacritic so far, it's looking to be a great piece of fun and craziness.

There is also some great news for owners of the PS3 version of the game. earlier in the year, Volition promised that there would be exclusive content on the PS3 version of the game. This exclusive content never seemed to come around so Volition is giving PS3 owners a free downloadable copy of Saints Row 2.

As Eurogamer reports, this needs to be activated by redeeming the online pass that comes with the game, this can be redeemed early next week. The offer lasts until the 13th of Febuary 2012 which is plenty of time for people who pick it up for christmas or during any sales next year.

This sounds like a really good way to make up for missed promises. While some might say that there isn't much point to playing the second one if you've got the third already, but I think it's a really nice bonus to those who feel a little shafted by the lack of exclusive PS3 content.

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

To add to yesterday's news of minecraft being finished on the PC, after many years of already being available. Minecraft has just been announced for iOS devices.

as per usual with Mojang, the majority of information has come from twitter. Minecraft developer, Jens Bergensten, also made the announcement that the game will have cross compatibility multiplayer with Android users as well.

the game is set to be costing $9.99 which translates to £6.99 on the UK app store, a little expensive for a reduced version of the game but still cheap nonetheless.

This has caught me by surprise, I knew of an iOS version in the works but Mojang were keeping pretty silent on the development of it. The android compatibility is also very surprising though i'm not sure there are many people who will make use of that. The price is a tiny bit steep but whether you get it on iOS or on PC, minecraft is a brilliant experience that is worth trying.

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Minecraft, the greatest waste of time for anyone. A game that has seen itself get catapulted to popularity with a community that is super dedicated. It is also a game that has been available to buy and download for over two years but hasn't actually been officially released yet.

Well it seems that is no more. Yesterday, on his twitter page, Minecraft creator "Notch" announced that the game has finally gone gold and is finished. This is just in time for the official release of the game along with "Minecon", the Minecraft convention, on November 18th.

While this is sure to get fans really excited, I can't say that I am at all. The game is pretty awesome and can seriously take up your time very quickly, but after a lot of time with it, I eventually got really bored with the whole thing and i haven't started minecraft up in absolutely ages. Also, I don't really think this game can ever be "released" in the strictest sense, since it has been available to buy and download for two years. Not only this, but Notch intends to update the game regularly, so this release isn't really a completely finished product but more of a milestone. With that said, I'm sure that Minecraft will have a fantastic launch and may even get some places to review it!

Thursday, 10 November 2011

Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood on the PC were pretty notorious for their DRM on the PC. Both games required that you be constantly connected online to play them, Even in the single player. This meant that you can't play if your internet connection goes don't or if you're trying to play on a laptop while on a journey.

Obviously this DRM scheme got many people angry when it was first announced, but it wasn't enough to stop Ubisoft from implementing it in Brotherhood one year later. However, it looks like They have finally been convinced that this DRM method is completely stupid, Rock-Paper-Shotgun reports that Ubisoft has confirmed that Assassin's Creed: Revelations, while delayed on PC, will not have the always on DRM that plagued that last two games.

While I wasn't really planning on getting AC:Rev on PC, i'm really happy to hear this news. I found the previous DRM to be intrusive and outright stupid. Not only that, but is was cracked within days of the game being released, so pirates were able to circumvent this DRM and enjoy the game offline. Hopefully, this means Ubisoft has something good in the works in regards to DRM, I can't really see how they can do worse than forcing internet on a single player game.

Wednesday, 9 November 2011

With many people absolutely insane for the next Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim. One piece of info released into the wild today is sure to drive up hype even more.

In an interview with Wired, Tod Howard, director of Skyrim, said that there will be an infinite amount of quests. Using whats called the "Radient Quest System", the game will be able to procedurally generate a quest for you should consist of content that you haven't seen before. This means a near infinite amount of possibilities for quests that can be given to you and things to do.

Hearing this is quite interesting. When I first heard about this, I didn't think much of it and thought that it would be random quests that aren't really that much fun. However, I've had a read up on the whole radiant story system and it has got me all excited for the game. Not only will quests be set up around what you do in the world, but the way people react to you and what you do, will be affected as well. It sounds really exciting but I also fear I might go insane with all the hours I imagine i'll be putting into the game when it comes out on friday.

Monday, 7 November 2011

It's been a pretty hectic few days for Bioware. With the recent leaking of the Beta for Mass Effect 3 and then subsequent leaking of major story spoilers. Bioware has been taking action, even going so far as to send a cease and desist to Neogaf, even though ME3 story spoilers were banned from the forum.

However, this isn't the only news to come from Bioware, there is actually some good old vague information about their new project due to be revealed at the Spike VGAs. All that has been released is one single screen shot from this game and it reveals not much at all.

It looks like it could be a vehicular combat style game set in a post apocalyptic future. Though such a game would be a big departure from anything they've done before. There is a chance it could be an RPG but i can't really imagine two cars crashing into each other being much of an RPG situation, but then I guess thats why I'm not a games designer. Whatever it is, I guess we'll find out in the next few days.

Thursday, 3 November 2011

In what is sure to be an interesting show, various tweets are giving us clues as to what will be revealed and shown during next weeks Spike VGA awards.

As Eurogamer reports, Geoff Keighley has been tweeting that bioware is making "A new game from a new studio". There are also reports of a downloadable follow up to Alan Wake, not strictly Alan Wake 2 but a continuation of some sort. As well as this, there will be a re reveal of Metal Gear Solid: Rising, which sounds most exciting.

These rumor's sound really nice. As my review showed, I really enjoyed Alan Wake, so a followup of the story or any expansion of the universe sounds good in my book. A new Bioware IP also has me excited, both Mass Effect and Dragon age are great franchises, so more Bioware is always a good thing. The most exciting thing looks to be MGS: Rising, I was worried by it's complete absence from E3 and thought it might have been canceled, so to see it coming back sounds really exciting.

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

As was announced last week, today Rockstar revealed the new trailer for GTA V and surprisingly, it's quite good on the info.

The trailer, which can be viewed on Rockstar's website, shows various locations and activities happening in the new area while, what is presumably the main character, talks about trying to leave a life of crime and yet getting sucked back into it (side note: why on Earth does this happen to all the main characters in GTA?).

From one shot in the trailer, we can see that Los Santos will be the name of our city, one of the cities in GTA: San Andreas. This has lead some to believe that we may see the game set in an entire state again, rather than a city. As well as this, we can see a major improvement on the graphics, everything looks much much crisper and cleaner, Rockstar seems to be really pushing their engine with this new entry.

I've never been much of a GTA fan but seeing this trailer has me really interested. I would certainly love to explore a huge open world like the entire state of San Andreas and the graphics look to be really good. I've got my hopes up for this one.

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

I picked up this little game on a bit of a whim after hearing the mere mention that weebl of weebls-stuff.com had made a game.

Russian Dancing Men is pretty much an iOS recreation of the playstation classic Vibribbon albeit in a completely different context. You play as a group of Russian dancing men that are trying to dance their way through the world. Along every route there are 4 types of obstacles, a stump, a loop, a pit and spikes, you have to press the corresponding button for each obstacle as they come, in time to the back ground music. Sometimes this can be further complicated by having combination of obstacles at the same time.

All this is done around the context of characters and music from the website weebls-stuff.com, best known for weebl and bob and the world famous, badgers badgers badgers. Fans of the website will probably already know of these characters and the completely random lyrics that go with their songs (For example: "We're Russian and we're dancing and we always keep spare pants in case of accidents while boogieing").

This game is pretty fun, I found the randomness of the lyrics the be absolutely hilarious but that might say more about my sense of humor than anything. The gameplay makes for a nice throwback to Vibribbon and certainly feels more forgiving than I remember Vibribbon to be, but it can still get very hard, especially when it starts throwing the combinations at you. If you can get through all the levels, you'll end up having a pretty fun time. The game is certainly worth way more than the £1.29 that you have to pay so it's worth going for I'd say.